Rate the last film you watched out of 100
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Shaun is the more focussed movie out of the three, which I why it's the strongest film. It's a pure zombie movie, with the comedy is laid on top.

I watched Hot Fuzz earlier in the week to prep for seeing The World's End, and its biggest problem is that it's sending up multiple genres at the same time -- Midsomer Murders style murder whodunnits, and Hollywood blockbuster cop/action movies. They don't quite gel together thematically.

The same problem is there in The World's End -- there are so many themes and ideas thrown into the mix that it's a bit of a muddle. Is it a buddy/road movie, invasion of the bodysnatchers spoof, kung-fu hand-to-hand combat movie, a Douglas Adams inspired sci-fi homage, or a post-apocalyptic film? It tries to be a bit of everything, and ends up feeling like a bit of a nothing.

I'm also not a big sci-fi guy, which doesn't help. It's a bit like a feature-length episode of Doctor Who.

craigy wrote:
The same problem is there in The World's End -- there are so many themes and ideas thrown into the mix that it's a bit of a muddle. Is it a buddy/road movie, invasion of the bodysnatchers spoof, kung-fu hand-to-hand combat movie, a Douglas Adams inspired sci-fi homage, or a post-apocalyptic film? It tries to be a bit of everything, and ends up feeling like a bit of a nothing

What TWE is is none of the above, but a Wright/Pegg/Frost film. It's overly self aware, to the point of restricting itself.

For anyone who hasn't seen it, don't be put off - it's not so bad that it isn't worth forming your own opinion. And a lot of it is very funny - just, I suspect, only the first time.

craigy wrote:Shaun is the more focussed movie out of the three, which I why it's the strongest film. It's a pure zombie movie, with the comedy is laid on top.

I watched Hot Fuzz earlier in the week to prep for seeing The World's End, and its biggest problem is that it's sending up multiple genres at the same time -- Midsomer Murders style murder whodunnits, and Hollywood blockbuster cop/action movies. They don't quite gel together thematically.

The same problem is there in The World's End -- there are so many themes and ideas thrown into the mix that it's a bit of a muddle. Is it a buddy/road movie, invasion of the bodysnatchers spoof, kung-fu hand-to-hand combat movie, a Douglas Adams inspired sci-fi homage, or a post-apocalyptic film? It tries to be a bit of everything, and ends up feeling like a bit of a nothing.

I'm also not a big sci-fi guy, which doesn't help. It's a bit like a feature-length episode of Doctor Who.

Shaun is the better film, but Hot Fuzz nicely combines Hollywood buddy cop movies and the twee nature of middle-England murder mysteries very well. I think they get the tone right actually.

They might not gel thematically, but the juxtaposition works very well for me.

beastmaster wrote:
Two of the best for me (and probably a lot of other people) are Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me. They get the balance just right.

Whilst I've enjoyed the Graig films (Royale is magnificent, QoS seems to depend on what mood I'm in), I would like to see how he does 'playful'. The ending kind of suggests it could go down that route a little bit more. If not, it doesn't really matter.

The Spy Who Loves Me is my fav 007 film. Best theme tune, best Bond girl, best Bond car, best opening sequence. That said, it has aged a little. I find Moonraker very watchable also.

A remake slash "update" of Ozu's Tokyo Story. If you don't know that one, it's basically a 1950s understated, bittersweet family drama about a couple of old folks going to meet their ungrateful, bratty kids in Tokyo. It's a classic, defo a must-watch if you're into Japanese cinema.

This one had basically the same plot, with some changes here and there. As a remake, though... yeah, my feelings are mixed.

The director gets the style of Ozu basically right, and has a lot of the same elements and themes in there: mostly static shots from just above the floor, letting the camera linger on scenes for a moment after they finish, plenty of shots of trains, and having a nice, almost saintly character called Noriko as the "ideal" woman in the film. That stuff is the same, and it's amazing how well they translate 60 or so years after the original.

But then there's other things that are massively overstated when Ozu would have been understated. I always found his films to be sad, but sad in a quiet, beautiful sort of way. But this one seemed determined to wring tears out of you, many times getting *really* melodramatic.

And the kids of the elderly couple are often so transparently, cartoonishly horrible to their parents that I was half expecting to find "directed by Clint Eastwood" in the credits. It didn't feel realistic at all, and it's the realistic, everyday-ness that I most like about Ozu.

Anyway, it was pretty good. A bit long, but good. I've seen better Ozu homages, though.

beastmaster wrote:
Two of the best for me (and probably a lot of other people) are Goldfinger and The Spy Who Loved Me. They get the balance just right.

Whilst I've enjoyed the Graig films (Royale is magnificent, QoS seems to depend on what mood I'm in), I would like to see how he does 'playful'. The ending kind of suggests it could go down that route a little bit more. If not, it doesn't really matter.

The Spy Who Loves Me is my fav 007 film. Best theme tune, best Bond girl, best Bond car, best opening sequence. That said, it has aged a little. I find Moonraker very watchable also.

Any film with a female character called Dr Goodhead can't be all bad. Actually, it can.

Mama - 6/10

A mixed bag of a horror(?) film. It starts off being one thing and ends up something entirely different.

The plot centres around a couple, one of whom finds his young nieces who have been living in the wild for 5 years. All the cast are superb and if you want to make a freaky horror film, it always helps if you cast creepy looking children.

It starts off really well. It's kind of creepy and you can't really see who or what Mama is. The excellent use of sound effects heighten the atmosphere as well. It's creepy, a tad unsettling and very atmospheric. It has a couple of great spooky scenes. Then in the latter stages of the film it falls into the trap which pretty much most horror films do, you get a full reveal of the monster and the effects kick into overdrive.

I suppose it's the rule of all modern horror films. "Here's the monster! It's coming at you from everywhere! Nowhere is safe! Boo! Boo! Boo!".

Two things I find about most modern monsters in horror films. If you're going to do a full reveal, make sure whatever it is looks fucking scary. Not like in this film where it looks like Tina Turner's bad hair day. The other thing I'd like to see is if you do a reveal, then have it hide back in the shadows again and keep it there for as long as possible.

A much different example of how a full reveal can be a bit shit is Cloverfield. You see it at the end and it looks like a mildly agitated shaven squirrel that's had something shoved up it's ass. Up until that point, you didn't really see it and it was so much better for it. The only time this full reveal really works is when you have a Freddy Kruger or Jason Voorhees type character.

So, now you see it, the film does the cheap scares for a bit then it kind of changes. It looks as though Tim Burton took over directing and it all goes into a kind of dark fantasy.

Overall though, it's a decent enough way to pass the time. Some great performances, a good atmosphere and two of the creepiest kids around. There's nothing new here either but that's okay.

Well you can tell people what to enjoy if you want, but that probably isn't going to work. It's like saying ice cream is a disguise for actual hunger or thirst, when you should just eat or drink something healthier.

In that analogy, it would be like people strongly complaining about knowing what flavour of ice cream they're getting in advance.

Anyway, there's nothing inherently wrong with twists, but 95% of them are bollocks and movies rely far too heavily on them.

You should basically approach them like this:

Once revealed, does the film become pointless to watch again (IE, is there a point to repeat viewings that reveal subtleties and intricacies that were revealed by the twist, or is there no point since all the tension and plotting of the film was wholly strung around the idea that X is actually Y from the future, etc etc)? If so, it's a shit film and you probably shouldn't care. If you're still bothered about it, congratulations, you are the perfect demographic for modern Hollywood.

For instance: Is it still worth seeing Twelve Angry Men knowing that they all eventually vote Not Guilty? Yes. Is it still worth seeing Glengarry Glen Ross knowing that Levene robbed the office? Yes. Planet of the Apes? Yes. Psycho? Yes.

Is it still worth seeing Pandorum after knowing that Payton is actually Gallo and is hallucinating his younger self, and that they're actually already on the planet they were looking for (OMG DOUBLE TWIST)? No. There. If you looked I just saved you two hours of derivative tedium.

Basically, if we stopped caring, we'd have more of the films in the first paragraph and less films like Pandorum.

meme wrote:
For instance: Is it still worth seeing Twelve Angry Men knowing that they all eventually vote Not Guilty? Yes. Is it still worth seeing Glengarry Glen Ross knowing that Levene robbed the office? Yes. Planet of the Apes? Yes. Psycho? Yes.

Basically, if we stopped caring, we'd have more of the films in the first paragraph and less films like Pandorum.

Sounds like you're just saying "is the film a good film or a bad film?" I don't think we're in any doubt that a film is not solely made good by a twist. Goes without saying that the film needs to be good to begin with.

But, for instance, if I'm going to see it at the cinema anyway, say with a friend (shock!), I'm sure it would STILL be better not knowing about any twists in advance, EVEN if over-all it's a bad film.

The only way to avoid knowing if there's a twist or not nowadays is to ignore any and all marketing, as most twists are arguably a marketing gimmick designed to exploit the fear of missing out, rather than an part of actual narrative. But trying to see films utterly blind by default seems a bit stupid, given how utterly shit most of them are nowadays. If a friend kept dragging me along to films I knew nothing about which turned out to be mostly bollocks, I'd probably stop going to films with them.

I might decide it wasn't all that great afterwards, but I reckon I'd get more enjoyment out of more mediocre films.

Give me a genre, the starring cast and maybe a one-line intro. That's it. I also think film trailers should, by agreement, not feature footage from outside of, say, the first thirty minutes of any film.